Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) (9 page)

He knew he was halfway toward an epiphany but had to let that go when Haley emerged from the coffee shop's kitchen that moment, carrying a box of something. Her hair was up, revealing her neck. She set down the box on a vacant table, shrugged, and grabbed a butter knife and stabbed it into the center.

Oliver saw her first, but then Trey turned in that direction and cut the pleasure of that moment in half.

“Don't you have a girlfriend in LA or somewhere?” Oliver asked. “Or Katy?”

“Nah,” Trey said, watching now as Haley used a very blunt knife to unpack a very securely wrapped box. She went at it with enthusiasm though and retrieved what looked like baked goods from inside.

“Not right now. I don't think it's practical, anyway. I'm always here or there. But maybe Haley and I could hang out, finally. I always wondered.”

Oliver lifted his mug enough so he could hide whatever expression his face had made. It was one thing to step aside and let Haley settle for a life with her dependable once-a-cheater. But if she chose this weekend to have a cold-feet fling…

Not today, Trey.
Trey may have won the chart, the year, and possibly the next decade, but Oliver wasn't going to let him take the weekend. He may have thought he had a head start with last night’s kiss, but amazing as it was, she did pull back. He was going to respect that distance she asked for, but that didn’t mean he was going to leave the door open for every dude with a guitar.

“So, the mentoring thing,” Oliver said, “want to work together on that? It’s my first time, and I’d like to see how it’s done. Before I ruin someone else’s life.”

That surprised the youngster, and no doubt flattered him. “I
have
done this before.”

“Mind if we hang together, my students with yours, later?” This idea had the double benefit of keeping Trey out of Haley’s way and appearing as if he was doing something for
TT
.

Trey was psyched at the idea, and Oliver congratulated himself on being a little bit of a self-serving dick for suggesting it. It made him feel like an adult. Like he had put his foot down and stood for something, even if every other person who had his phone number was telling him he had nothing left.

***

The toughest crowd Oliver had ever played for: Singapore, when he was fifteen, jetlagged, and thirsty. Later he was told that the particular audience was a polite bunch of bankers and would have been as unenthusiastic if Mick Jagger had been bouncing around in front of them. Oliver had been flown in with a smaller version of the group to perform a selection of pieces. He could have sworn not one person there, out of the two hundred in the concert hall, was convinced he knew what he was doing. The look he was getting from Kari Ball and her brother John was giving him déjà vu.

It started out painless, at least for him. Victoria’s scheduled nine a.m. “Welcome to Breathe Music” ceremony had to be moved up to one of the second-floor function rooms from the poolside because the pool was somewhat visible from the outside, and that was where about a dozen girls were camped out, with actual camping gear.

“Sorry about this,” Victoria said as soon as she accounted for all thirty-two people she was supposed to be welcoming. “I don’t think this’ll be the only time we’ll have to suddenly squeeze into a confined space this weekend, if only to get some peace and quiet. Those Trey Girls are on Twitter about what’s happening here, I don’t even know how. But Trey’s management is making sure that those girls outside are safe and won’t get attacked by bears or something. Anyway. Welcome to Breathe Music, everyone!”

Oliver didn’t take one of the chairs that had been pulled into the room at the last minute. He chose instead to stand near the door and scanned the room for Haley, but didn’t see her.

Victoria was handed a microphone, and she tapped it to check if it was working. “So this is the thing I say every year, when we start this.

“Good morning, musical hearts and hands of Houston. Welcome to Breathe Music Festival, which for twelve years now has been connecting young musicians with established music pros. This began as a charity event, and is now, I’m proud to say, a staple in Houston’s music scene. Because of the students, who apply by the hundreds every year for a chance at one of the dozen slots available. Because of the mentors, who take time out to fly back home and share the wisdom they’ve gained from their colorful careers. Because of the sponsors, who pitch in not just money but passion and help make sure that you have a comfortable experience and not have to pay a cent for this.

“We’re doing all of this with only one purpose: make music. Breathe music. Are you ready to do that now?”

This actually made Oliver pause. He hadn’t thought about music this way in a long time, even as he was fighting for the right to make the music he wanted. Should he tell the kids then that it wouldn’t always be that way, that they were walking into an industry that didn’t want them as they were and instead were looking for the next lump of clay like Trey?

He suspected that Victoria wouldn’t want that.

She began to explain what the weekend had in store for them. Morning and afternoon mentoring sessions, leading to performances at midday and early evening where the students could show what they had learned.

“Oliver Cabrera,” Victoria was saying. “You probably know him as a bestselling rock and alternative artist, but he’s also a classically trained musician, a
Tomorrow’s Talent
winner, and he grew up like five blocks from my house. Oliver, you will be mentor to the Ball siblings John and Kari.”

It looked like he was the only mentor to get a duo, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing. At the end of Victoria’s speech the mentors and students found each other, and he found himself looking down (and up) at the young people whose dreams he should be encouraging.

“I watched
Tomorrow’s Talent
when I was a kid,” John said. “But it’s been cancelled, right?”

Off to a good start. “Well, not
yet.”

Trey and his student, a girl who looked completely overwhelmed, showed up beside them. “I got dibs on the meeting room down the hall. Best acoustics, I promise you, and near the bathrooms. Let’s jam there?”

Chapter 12

Trey wanted this. He really did. He could have anything in the world at this point, and he was stoked about being a mentor.

“This is the
beginning
of the rest of your lives, I promise!” he said. “If you think you’ve got it in you, you should take the time to discover it here. And we’ll help you!”

Oliver kept the impulse to gag inside him, deep inside, and left a mask of polite agreement on his face.

And Trey went on.

“…the first day is going to suck,” Trey was saying. “On my first day, my backup track kept skipping, and I forgot my lyrics, and someone else in the group sang the exact same song. It’s insane! So get it over with and let’s do our best. What were you all thinking of singing?”

Oliver saw Kari Ball consulting a piece of paper, where a list was haphazardly scribbled. They had been told they could get to sing nearly anything (the performances were private, not televised, so there were no rights issues.)

“
A Thousand Years
,” she said, referencing the Christina Perri song.

“
Livin’ on a Prayer
,” John said at the same time.

Oliver noticed the siblings shoot glares at each other and scooted his chair closer.

“The two of you will have to figure that out,” Trey said. “How about you…?”

Trey had turned his attention to his actual student, and Oliver managed to get his together in a small huddle.

“You’re supposed to perform together, right?” he asked. “How exactly are you going to be comfortable doing either song?”

“I’m
not
comfortable doing his Bon Jovi,” Kari protested.

“She wants that other song because I play guitar and do nothing else on it,” John whined.

Trey cleared his throat and stepped in. “The first informal performances will be at the café over lunch. Maybe nothing too…
eighties.
Here, any of these cool with you?” Before Oliver could react, the kid had whipped out his phone and was sharing playlists with Oliver’s students.

“There wasn’t anything wrong with what they wanted,” Oliver said over Trey’s shoulder. “We need some time to figure out how to perform either one properly.”

“Ash, I’ll get to you in a sec,” Trey said to his own student. To the rest of them, he went, “Look, Oliver, I’ve done this before. This is what’ll work. You two are fine with doing what works, right? There are other mentors who are record execs and music industry media that are going to be watching. You shouldn’t use this time to experiment and screw up.”

“That’s funny,” Oliver said petulantly, even as he backed up from the huddle. “They’re kids. It’s the perfect time to experiment and screw up.”

Oliver felt more than a little pride in how he chose the music he performed at
Tomorrow’s Talent
, the entire fifteen-week run of it. Except for one song in the finals, chosen for him by the producers. He was personally responsible not just for his slips on that show, but also his accomplishments, especially the handful of performances that took him to the top and helped him stay there.

“I don’t know, Oliver,” Trey said, barely looking at him. “Not everyone’s got the balls to do what you’re doing.”

“And that would be what, Lewis?”

He shrugged. “Striking out on your own, you know. With your chin up even if the record company’s tough on you. Not everyone’s built for that kind of…independence.”

Son of a bitch.
The kid had a mean streak in him. But Oliver should have expected it. It was his fault that he let his guard down.

The voice was still cloyingly sweet, despite being old enough to grow facial hair, and that made Oliver uncomfortable about his reflex to hit the guy who said it.

“Fine,” Oliver said, mocking a tip of a hat to Trey. “Kari, John, let me know which song you pick and I’ll work with you on it. Five minutes?”

That was enough time to step out and get some air—and maybe let out his aggression on something else. Despite the drama and the tabloid coverage, the three altercations he had been involved in that made the news were the only times he had actually been violent to other people.

He couldn’t afford to even hint at being violent right now. He wasn’t going to be nailing his own coffin shut.

He had to knock on four wrong doors before he ended up in the right one—the hotel’s own guest library. He apologized to the people inside and was glad that it was a relatively private space.

“Did you need something?” Haley asked.

The only other person inside was a teenage girl. Oliver hesitated, then figured that she’d be fine with whatever she saw. So he took Haley’s hand, pulled her up so she was standing, and laid a full, hard kiss on her mouth. Surprised, she gasped a bit and then relaxed into it but pulled back as soon as she lost her breath.

“Um, yes?” She struggled to regain her composure, but she was smiling. “Rough morning so far?”

“I don’t work well with other people,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s too bad. You’re going to have to work with at least two.”

“I know. I needed an energy boost.”

“Tell me about it later,” Haley said.

Chapter 13

Haley discovered Breathe Music by accident.

She was a freshman in high school, and on her first day, she had been waiting for her mom to pick her up. They had a mix-up over where exactly this would happen and had ended up with both of them waiting for fifteen minutes on opposite sides of the campus. Haley decided to run to her mom instead, and she cut across a maze-like covered walk to get there. The walkway sort of abruptly ended with a corkboard, which she almost bounced off of in her rush. She disturbed half the fliers on the board, but one of them caught her attention by falling right into her hand—BREATHE MUSIC FESTIVAL FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS.
Learn from the best and all for free—if you’re good enough! Prove to us that you are.

She kept the flier in hand as she negotiated the rest of the maze to find her mom’s car. And then it took her another couple of days to gather up the nerve to try out for a slot.

So Haley understood completely when a student felt completely perplexed by this arrangement, being holed up in a hotel and asked to perform twice a day or more. She knew that it was part of her job as a mentor to settle them in. Her favorite spot for mentoring was by the window in the small library beside the coffee shop in the Lake Star Hotel.